Improvement in clover-harvesters



2 Sheets+3heet 1.

Patented May 28;1861.

N4 PETERS, Fhuw-Liihngnphar, Washington. D. C.

l UNITED. SfrnTEs PATENT OFFICE,

or osrRAn En, OHIO.

I PROVEM ENT IN CLOVE R HARVESTERS Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 32,416, 'dfllillfl l\lay28, 1861.

"To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, FREDERICKE DECKER, of 0strander,in the county of Delaware and State of Ohio have inventeda new and Improved Clover-Harvester; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, making a part of this specification, in which v 'Figure 1 is a longitudinal section through my improved machine, taken in the vertical plane indicated by the red line a m in Fig. 2. Fig.2 is a plan view of the machine complete. Fig. 3*isa detailed view representing the ad justable plates on one side of the machine. Similar letters of reference indicate corre sponding parts in the three figures.

This invention relates to a novel means for adjusting the gatheringapparatus of a clover seed or head harvester, whereby the machine may be made to gather from short ortall clover on theside of a hill and on very ununiform land, as will'be fully explained hereinafter.

To enable those skilled in the art to make and use my invention, I will proceed to describe its construction and operation.

In the accompanying drawings, A represents a'cylinder, made either of wood'or iron,

which has its end bearings in the sides of a body, B. This body B is constructed of abottom and sides, across the front end of which extends the cylinder A, above referred to.

This body B is mounted on wheels 0 Gat its front end, and it is furnished with handles 1) D, projecting from itsrear end, and also two pivoted legs, a a, for supporting the rear end of this body when the machine is not in immediate use 5 but when the machine is in use the legs a a are hooked up out of the way, as represented in dotted lines, Fig; 1. The horizontal shape of the body is represented in Fig. 2, and the ledges or side-boards surrounding the sides andrear part of this body B should extend up a suificient distance from the bottom to prevent the gathered clover-heads from falling out. The tail-board b is tongued and grooved into the stationary boards on each side of it, so that this tail-board can be lifted up when it is desired to discharge the gathered heads from the body B, and the heads may then be removed from the cart by depressing the rearend of the machine.

Alongflthe front part of the bottom board of a of this cutting and brushing cylinder A has its end hearings in plates (1 (Z, which are bolted near the front end of this body, by bolts e e, which pass through vertical. slots 6' e in said plates at (I. These slotted plates may now be adjusted vertically, so as to set the edges of the knives g at the 'n'operdistance from the to the sides of body B, and, as before described,

surfaces of the gathering-fingers c c to effect the perfect operation of these knives g g and brushes h h upon the clover-heads. By thisadjustment oft-he cylinder A provision is made for the wearing away of the edges of theknives and the ends of the brushes.

Just behind the plates (1 d, and let into the outside surfaces of the side boards of the body B, are vertical plates k k, which extend from the top edge of the side boards, to which they are secured, some distance below the bottom of the body B, as shown in Figs. 1 and 3 of the-v drawings- These long. plates is k are slotted in a direction with their length, and they are bolted securely to the body B by bolts Z I, which pass through the slots, which bolts, 011 beingloosened, will allow the plates k k to be adjusted in a direction with their length, raised or depressed.

To the lower ends of plates 7c k the short axles'm m are securely fixed, and these axles m m carry the wheels 0 O, of which 0 is a driving-wheel for the knife and brush cylinder A; and for this purpose a belt, n, is passed *overthe inside hub portion. of driving-wheel C, and also over a pulley, s, which is on one end of the shaft a of cylinderA. Thus as'the wheel 0 is rotated the cylinder will also be rotated with a faster or slower motion, accord ing to the diameters of the pulleys over which the belt it passes.

- N ow, from this description of my improvement in clover-harvesters it will be seen that by raising or depressing either one of the plates k k one side of the machine may be elevated higher than the other side, and by adjusting both plates equally the gathering apparatus may be set nearer toor farther from the ground, so as to gather from either short or tall clover. Then, again, in adjusting the eylinder s'haft'a', by means of the plates 11 d, for setting the knives and brushes at the desired distance from the fingers a 0, the driving-belt n may be kept under proper tension bymeans of the adjustable plates kk.'

I do not claim the "cylinder of brushes and knives operating in conjunction with fingers c c, for these are old devices. for gathering clover-seed pods;-but,

' rately adjustable plates 7: 'k, 'andax1es m m, as

and for the purposes herein shown and described.

FREDERICK]; DECKER.

- Witnesses:

'A. E. Wrqron, JAMES EATQN. 

